t is possible that in a second letter I gave more of distinct praise or encouragement, for her third is in a different mood. This was received June 8, 1862. There is something startling in its opening image; and in the yet stranger phrase that follows, where she apparently uses "mob" in the sense of chaos or bewilderment: --

    DEAR FRIEND, -- Your letter gave no drunkenness, because I tasted rum before. Domingo comes but once; yet I have had few pleasures so deep as your opinion, and if I tried to thank you, my tears would block my tongue.
    My dying tutor told me that he would like to live till I had been a poet, but Death was much of mob as I could master, then. And when, far afterward, a sudden light on orchards, or a new fashion in the wind troubled my attention, I felt a palsy, here, the verses just relieve.
    Your second letter surprised me, and for a moment, swung. I had not supposed it. Your first gave no dishonor, because the true are not ashamed. I thanked you for your justice, but could not drop the bells whose jingling cooled my tramp. Perhaps the balm seemed better, because you bled me first. I smile when you suggest that I delay "to publish," that being foreign to my thought as firmament to fin.
    If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would for- sake me then. My barefoot rank is better.
    You think my gait "spasmodic." I am in danger, sir. You think me "un- controlled." I have no tribunal.
    Would you have time to be the "friend" you should think I need? I have a little shape: it would not crowd your desk, nor make much racket as the mouse that dents your galleries. If I might bring you what I do -- not so frequent to trouble you -- and ask you if I told it clear, 't would be control to me. The sailor cannot see the North, but knows the needle can. The "hand you stretch me in the dark" I put mine in, and turn away. I have no Saxon now: --

 As if I asked a common alms,
 And in my wondering hand
 A stranger pressed a kingdom,
 And I, bewildered, stand;
 As if I asked the Orient
 Had it for me a morn,
 And it should lift its purple dikes
 And shatter me with dawn!

    But, will you be my preceptor, Mr. Higginson?

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